1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a musical tone generating apparatus for use with an electronic keyboard musical instrument, and more particularly to such a tone generating apparatus of an adapter type as is connected to a host electronic musical instrument via a data cable to enhance tone richness of music performance.
2. Prior Art
There has been proposed a musical tone generating apparatus of the kind which is adapted to be connected via a data line to a host electronic keyboard musical instrument for generating musical tone signals in response to depressions of the keys on the keyboard of the master keyboard musical instrument. A musical tone generating apparatus of this kind is disclosed in the published specification of Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 56-3587. Such a musical tone generating apparatus is used to generate musical tone signals, separately from those produced by the keyboard musical instrument, in accordance with key information supplied from the electronic keyboard musical instrument to thereby make the produced musical sounds more profound and rich as a whole performance. Such a musical tone generating apparatus is generally manufactured and sold separately from the electronic keyboard musical instrument.
The conventional musical tone generating apparatus of the above type is so constructed that musical tone signals are generated respectively in response to any depressed ones among all of the keys in the keyboard of the electronic keyboard musical instrument. And therefore, with the conventional musical tone generating apparatus, it has not been possible for the player to play the keyboard musical instrument more freely by restricting the musical tone signals generated by the musical tone generating apparatus to those which correspond to keys within a desired key range (compass) in the keyboard.